Several weeks ago I spoke at the Sinch Online Legal Services Conference in Sydney. My topic was the state of play in legal innovation and I covered what I thought were the most significant events of the past year (and of the near future). This column addresses some of those events. Special thanks goes to Jordan Furlong and Stephanie Kimbro for their input and, as always, to Simon Lewis for organizing the conference.

Disruptive Business Models

In November, 2010, Thomson Reuters acquired legal process outsourcing company Pangea3 and at the same time put bar examination preparation course provider BAR-BRI up . . . [more]

With the relative newness of digital licensing and the growing opportunities for licensing electronic content (including on social networking sites), there are a number of misconceptions already developing. By discussing and clearing up these misconceptions, it will help clear the path to an easier negotiating road and to better licenses.

Misconception #1: Not all licenses are negotiable. Almost every licence is negotiable, but often you have to ask the other side if they are willing to negotiate so that you will have a licence that meets your needs. Always remember to only accept a licence and arrangement that works for . . . [more]

Kent Law School in the UK has launched the inaugural issue of a new open access journal, feminists@law. This from the journal description on the home page:

feminists@law is a peer-reviewed online journal which aims to publish critical, interdisciplinary, theoretically engaged scholarship that extends feminist debates and analyses relating to law and justice (broadly conceived). It has a particular interest in critical and theoretical approaches and perspectives that draw upon postcolonial, transnational and poststructuralist work. The journal publishes material in a range of print and multimedia formats and in English and other languages. The journal is committed to an

I have never seen so much enthusiasm over access to judicial hearings as I have this past week. The Supreme Court of Canada heard the appeal of the B.C. Court of Appeal’s decision in Attorney General of Canada, et al. v. PHS Community Services Society, et al., dealing with the safe injection site in Vancouver known as Insite.

The case deals with ss. 4(1) and 5(1) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, and an exemption under s. 56, which allowed the clinic to stay open.

The buzz extended well beyond the legal community, and included poverty and . . . [more]

A simple question for Slaw-yers: was #Elxn41 the “Social Media Election”?

The term was tossed about during the campaign with conjecture on how social media would impact the election; so now that the election is over and we have had some time to reflect, was it the “social media election”? I am unsure, but my inclination is that it was not. Primarily because I did not see a lot of content generated specifically for social media, nor have I observed an impact that can be attributed to social media. I saw of lot of content generated in a traditional fashion . . . [more]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

OTTAWA, May 13, 2011 – The Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada, announced today that Justice Ian Binnie and Justice Louise Charron have written to the Minister of Justice, the Honourable Robert Nicholson, to inform him that they will retire from the Supreme Court of Canada. Justice Charron’s retirement will be effective August 30, 2011. Justice Binnie’s retirement will take effect upon the same date or, if there is a delay in the nomination process, so soon thereafter as his replacement is appointed. The Judges Act provides that a judge of the Supreme Court of . . . [more]

Lists have power. There’s a sense that we’ve achieved dominion over a thing when we’ve snugged it into place within a list: to order is akin to ordering about.

Sometimes this is naughty, sometimes nice, as that chubby list-maker Santa might say. Joe McCarthy, one of Wisconsin’s most disgraceful sons, waved that notorious piece of paper over his head in the US Senate, saying, “I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party…”

But then, to go to the other . . . [more]

LisNews points us to an interesting alert on the vulnerability of ebook reader apps to linkspamming, phishing and, potentially, the full range of malicious exploits.

As the full potential of hypertext for the communication of book-length works is incrementally being explored, I suppose this development is inevitable. . . . [more]

Back in May 2007, Simon Fodden mentioned the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) of the U.S. Court of Federal Claims dealing with the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act. Alex Manevich followed soon after with decisions denying the link between vaccines and autism, and an insightful discussion on policy aspects of statutory bars to claims not fully grounded in scientific evidence.

More recently, Michael Lines raised the retraction by The Lancet and findings of unethical behaviour by physicians in the U.K. who claimed a link between vaccines and autism.

But just when you think a debate of this . . . [more]

“How do we know if our website is delivering value?” More law firm partners are asking this question these days, especially when the website commands a noticeable chunk of the IT or marketing budgets (or both). However, unlike many IT projects (usually marked as depreciating capital assets) or marketing efforts (often difficult to link to new business), law firm websites can be measured in a variety of ways, with each metric weighted differently depending on the view of the lawyer or firm involved. Consider some of the following methods:

1. Website traffic. It’s hard to argue with the ongoing count . . . [more]

The Google IO developer conference has just finished up, with one of the major announcements being the new Chrome OS laptops, such as the Samsung Series 5 seen in this Engadget video:

The feature list is intentionally short, but the prices are comparable to the sub-$450 laptop market — a little high, honestly, since the chromebook doesn’t look all that superior to current netbook trend. If you’ve used Google’s Chrome browser with apps, you already know about the user experience. The lack of the ability to install executable files has caused some speculation that the antivirus industry may be impacted . . . [more]

The University of Toronto is hosting a cyber-surveillance event this week that includes the typical academic workshops, as well as an artistic component. The event and the workshop are part The New Transparency: Surveillance and Social Sorting, a research project funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council.

From the press release:

Digitally mediated surveillance is an increasingly prevalent, but still largely invisible, aspect of everyday life. As we work, play and negotiate public spaces, on-line and off, we produce a growing stream of personal digital data of interest to unseen others. CCTV cameras hosted by private and public